Manuel Moreno, of Santa Ana, also known as rapper Thee Suspect is claiming to be the Godfather of Orange County Hip Hop. "It's not even a question of belief," said Asaf Fulks, who runs The OC Recording Company. "He is the godfather of OC rap. He's one of the pioneers. You've got to give him his respect."

Manuel Moreno, of Santa Ana, also known as rapper Thee Suspect, visits with Ghetto Records store owner Jim Huff who was the first to sell Thee Suspect CDs nearly 20 years ago, according to the rapper.

Manuel Moreno, of Santa Ana, also known as rapper Thee Suspect is claiming to be the Godfather of Orange County Hip Hop. "Not to sound braggadocio," he says. "But no one has dared challenge me."

Manuel Moreno, of Santa Ana, also known as rapper Thee Suspect is claiming to be the Godfather of Orange County Hip Hop.

An old photo of Thee Suspect, center, sits on the wall of famed Santa Ana music store Ghetto Music where the self-proclaimed godfather of OC rap sold his first albums.

Thee Suspect poses near the street sign at Hood street where he says he grew up in Santa Ana.

Manuel Moreno has his loyalty inked into the knot of muscle above each shoulder: An “O” on the right side, a “C” on the left.

He’s a big guy, with a chest like the hood of a car, so he doesn’t get many Mickey Mouse jokes when he flexes and that O and C bulge out like two fists. Yeah, Orange County is the home of Disneyland and some diva housewives. You want to ask him about it?

That doesn’t mean there haven’t been times when it would have been a lot easier for him to just say he’s from Los Angeles. He is, after all, a tough-talking, swagger-walking rapper. Orange County doesn’t exactly have the street cred of Compton or Long Beach.

But that’s where he’s from, and that’s who he is. His fans known him as Thee Suspect, a funky old-schooler from the Santa Ana barrio. But he’s got another title, one that he’s earned through years of rapping at parties and car shows, concerts and clubs:

The Godfather of OC Rap.

“Not to sound braggadocio,” he says. “But no one has dared challenge me.”

He smiles. “Only beef I get is on a plate.”

• • •

Product from the streets I am.

Bald head, tattoos, here I stand.

Mark my turf, my territory.

This here is my South Side story.

He grew up in a rough neighborhood in south Santa Ana, not far from Centennial Park. When he was little, he drew a crayon picture of his street – complete with gang names scratched across a front-yard fence.

That was his style when he got older, too, and graduated to poems in high school and then party rhymes and hardcore raps. He wanted to show his neighborhood as it really was – the kids cruising on Bristol Street and the families barbecuing in the park, but also the bullet holes punched through car doors.

He says he ran with a tough crowd back then, but the neighborhood veterans kept him in line and he never really went looking for trouble. Orange County court records from the past several years make him sound more like a choir boy with an occasional lead foot than a gangsta rapper.

“Never got caught,” he says with a shrug, and leaves it at that.

He started writing raps when he was a teenager in the mid-1980s, free-styling verses after school while a cousin laid down a beat. Soon, they were taking their rhymes to weekend parties – and going home at the end of the night with $100 in their pockets.

From there, he moved into a Southern California circuit of rap battles, going face to face with other rappers, “spittin’ rhymes like a machine gun.” This was serious stuff – no weak rhymes about bling and booties. Moreno remembers seeing guys prepare for the stage with a Thesaurus.

“You stink like a skunk,” he told an opponent at one such battle, to the glee of the crowd. “You’re juvenile like a punk. If I gave you a rap test, you would flunk.”

He got his stage name after a show one night, when a fan told him: “Man, you always return to the scene of the crime. You’re the suspect.” Moreno added the extra “E” as an exclamation point. Not just the suspect. Thee Suspect.

• • •

I put a star on the map

So all could see.

I did it with an O and a capital C.

One thing you learn when you’re the godfather of Orange County rap: Not many people in this world consider Orange County a particularly hard-knock place. Parts of Los Angeles have real reputations for mean streets. Orange County has …

Palm trees and rollerblades. Moreno has heard that before – heard it this summer, in fact, after performing in Europe, of all places. And he concedes: “Mickey Mouse is not a very threatening image.”

But he wants a little more respect than that – some recognition that what people see on television is only one side of Orange County. “You want to film the real OC, you’ve got to go to Santa Ana, Anaheim,” he says. “That’s real.”

Still, more than one promoter has suggested he drop the OC and just say he’s from Los Angeles. They say Santa Ana doesn’t have the name recognition. And Orange County just doesn’t have the notoriety.

He’s got those tattoos on his shoulders for an answer. And if that’s not enough, he’ll roll up his sleeve to reveal a Rams horn tattooed on his left arm – as in the NFL Rams, who played in Anaheim when he was a kid.

“I always stuck with the county,” he says.

• • •

Forty years of local music have come and gone while Jim Huff watched from the counter of his Santa Ana music store, Ghetto Records. So if you want to know if Moreno is the real deal, the Godfather, then Jim Huff is the guy to ask. He answers as if it’s obvious.

“Most everybody knows that he’s the guy who started it all.”

Or you can ask Asaf Fulks, who runs The OC Recording Company and figures he’s worked with dozens, maybe hundreds, of local rappers. “It’s not even a question of belief,” he says. “He is the godfather of OC rap. He’s one of the pioneers. You’ve got to give him his respect.”

Moreno has put out five albums – the first in 1991, the latest this year – and he’s working on his sixth and seventh. His name is on iTunes. He’s rapped about Orange County on stages as far afield as Ireland.

But rap has never made him rich. He’s made enough money from his records to fix up his car, a ’64 Impala. But he pays the bills as a personal trainer, pushing retirees and young professionals to get into shape.

He’s 36 years old, a proud father who brags that his teenage son is taller than he is, a homebody who’s perfectly happy watching movies or wrestling on TV. He tries to make it to local rap shows as often as he can, a veteran watching the next generation come up.

He’s still waiting for Orange County to get its due. And when it does, he figures his name will be right there in front. The Godfather.

“It’s going to happen, man,” he says. “It’s going to get a reputation, and then everybody is going to want to be from here.

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